D&D 5E How do you define “mother may I” in relation to D&D 5E?

[Maxperson]

My experience of 5e and the experiences I have heard of from a great many people indicate that it is in fact played this way, where the DM expects players to always ask if they are allowed to do things. This is why every single advice thread started by a player gets a warning to "ask your DM." Because asking one's DM is in fact required.

I have never experienced this in 2e-5e. In 1e I experienced it a little while I was in junior high and high school.

Where is that rule, because I have not seen anything in any edition that says, "You must ask your DM for his permission to have your PC try to do something."

Without such an explicit rule, the bolded is clearly false.

Except it isn't. Did you, or anyone, sign it? Agree to it before witnesses, in the case of oral contracts? Does it have clauses and definitions and prescribed behavior, with penalties for failure to behave as such? Does it have proscribed behavior, with penalties for engaging in such behavior?

This is the fundamental flaw of social contract theory. It tries to apply an area of law and philosophy built around explicit definitions and explicit consent, but uses something presumed, undefined, and (most importantly) not actually involving explicit consent. You cannot be bound by a contract you never explicitly agreed to! That's literally one of the most fundamental concepts in contract law.

Unless otherwise stated, we agree by agreeing to play the game together to follow the rules as written, be fair to one another, not cheat, etc. If the DM does not explicitly change that, that's all part of agreeing to a social game. The DM is bound by it as well, since he did not say he was changing it.

I agree that it is more binding and important. But did you actually talk it out with them? Did you specify what parts of the agreement were or were not present? Because if you didn't, if you left it up to interpretation, or (so-called) common sense, or (so-called) respect, or whatever else, then yes, it DOES "matter what they think." Because you entered with your expectations of what should be in that contract, and they entered with theirs, and neither of you actually confirmed that those expectations were the same. Yet you handed over trust and authority to them anyway.

If you hash it out to the nth detail, it's not a social contract. It's an explicit agreement. The social contract is basically, "Don't be a douche." If the DM wants to be one, he needs to be up front at the beginning and say, "None of you can actually do anything in the game unless I say you can. Your PCs can't so much as open a door or try to find a bar without asking me." Then the DM gets to play a solo game at home since he has no players.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Then the DM gets to play a solo game at home since he has no players.

And yet I hear actual play reports about this sort of thing frequently.

You can insist that it is impossible all you like. People actually do run the game this way, and they actually get players. I am as surprised as you that people willingly put up with that, but they do.

And many if the things actual users on this forum advocate are quite player-hostile. For example, openly stating that they will treat non-core-four race characters as essentially non-persons until the "problem" solves itself (that is, by the player wising up and choosing to play one of the core four, ideally a human...or quitting the game.)

If I've learned nothing else from my time on this forum, it is that there are HUGE disagreements about what counts as, in your terms, "be[ing] a douche."

 

[Maxperson]

And yet I hear actual play reports about this sort of thing frequently.

You can insist that it is impossible all you like. People actually do run the game this way, and they actually get players. I am as surprised as you that people willingly put up with that, but they do.

Then they got what they asked for. It is not, however, a symptom of any game requirements or a trait of any DM who is of any decent quality. Those games are Mother May I, but all the players signed up for it so nobody else should be upset that it exists for them. My game and the vast majority of traditional games are not Mother May I and Mother May I is not a default part of the D&D experience.

 

[clearstream]

Appreciated! And likewise!

And to clarify, I don’t want to categorize anyone as ignorant. I just don’t like the implication made of me when I’ve made some pretty strong efforts to dhare my opinion and experiences, and why I feel the way I do.



No, not at all. I’m not assuming any bad faith in your part. The question is “how do you prevent or remedy MMI in your games?”

If you don’t think the question is relevant, you’re not obliged to answer. However, I’d say that folks answering that question would be a great way to shift the conversation more toward a productive path.

Much earier in the thread, you had offered some Principles you apply to your play. This is the kind of thing I’m asking for. If you can also connect those principles to an example if actual play and how it all went, that’d be even better.

But no, there’s no assumption of bad faith.



Sure, conversation is always going to go a long way to help alleviate any issues with the group. All I would add here is that if I’m running a game and one of my players picks something like a Folk Hero background, I’m gonna try and make that relevant in play, to offer situations where it matters.

If I don’t, then I think it very likely says something about whose ideas on the content of the game take precedence, which I think certainly plays a part in MMI.

Thank you, I found your latest helpful (and now that's two folk here that I owe more detailed replies to.)

I feel I mightn't have hit the tone I intended or expressed my ideas quite as well as I would have liked in my last few posts, so I'm going to take a break and hopefully come back in a day or two with something productive.

@EzekielRaiden I don't dismiss the influence or consequence of the ruleset. My view has facets that you may not have noted, or - more likely - that I've explained insufficiently well. I'll be back in a few days to catch up.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Whilst @tetrasodium's post is rather harsh, I think that analysis of Rustic Hospitality is onto something. I noticed the same thing when I read the background descriptions. They are cool bits of flavour, but mechanically they seem to be from some other game and do not really jive with the assumptions of most of the other mechanics. They also often rely on the sort of fluff that might be really hard to justify in many situations; for example if you travel into some faraway land (rather common occurrence in D&D in my experience) how will the commoners there know your folk hero? No wonder the designers are changing them to provide blander but easier to adjudicate feats in 5.5.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Here I feel one risks a - they're too ignorant to know better - sort of conclusion. That I'm quite wary of.

If "the culture of the hobby sets expectations" that people will not necessarily see outside of is a pointer to "ignorance"--well, its an argument, but I think it defines an extremely common phenomena both in the hobby and in other outside contexts as "ignorance", and if you insist on using it that broadly, I'd say that's a self-inflicted wound on your part here.

 

[Ovi]

It is a terrible choice of a term for supposedly neutral descriptor of non-dysfunctional state, and it is no wonder if people have hard time believing that person who insist that they're using it so is not arguing in good faith.

Why is it terrible? It's very descriptive of the fact that players cannot achieve any of their goals without GM approval. This is how 5e the system tells you it works. It's in the core loop, and throughout the text as the GM determines how things work (after deciding to call for them). Noting this doesn't mean that's how a given table plays, or it a given table thinks it's bad play. 5e is intentionally designed to be MMI so that it can accommodate the widest range of table enforced constraints on play possible.

 

[Malmuria]

A significant amount of effort would have to go into rewriting the not-exactly-rules text of the PHB and DMG. Some of this of stuff I've already spoken about previously. I'm not really qualified to just unilaterally rewrite the mechanics themselves (that's a difficult task that requires testing, as I've said many times elsewhere), so I'll confine myself to mostly non-rules stuff.

• Emphasizing the "toolkit" nature of most things. E.g., rewriting large portions of the preamble for races and classes in the PHB, to emphasize that these things are part of a conversation, building up a theme and concept for a world. Conversely, emphasizing in DMG stuff that while the DM may have final say on things, it is critical that they give as much consideration as possible to player requests in order to build and maintain trust.
• Adding a section to the DMG specifically about "session zero" and how critical it is for effective play in 5e. Specific guidance (perhaps even instructions) on important topics to cover, questions to ask, and commonly-overlooked details that can derail or create problems.
• Taking a leaf from that document I linked earlier about DW Player Agendas: trying to find what areas players do have authority over, and finding ways to make distribution and application of authority more equitable.
• Providing suggested methods for how authority can be more equitable; for example, delegation (e.g. the DM trusting a particular player to track initiative) or giving specific circumstances under which the players can overturn a decision (e.g. "If a majority of players still disagree with a ruling after the end of session, we'll talk it over and set up a precedent for the future.")
• Repeatedly, at every opportunity, emphasizing the need for clear and open communication between all sides. Communication is the most important tool for averting MMI.
• Taking a leaf from 4e and emphasizing something along the lines of, "If it's even a little bit plausible, let the players try."
• Explicitly telling DMs that it's a crappy move to "allow" something, but then give it a sky-high DC and/or paltry benefits, because that's effectively forbidding it while trying to sound "fair." If you're opposed to something, say that, don't try to have it both ways.
• Explicitly instructing DMs about the faults of things like "roll Stealth every round you continue doing things" and other common breakdown cases that can happen even when DMing in good faith. This would include instructions along the lines of "let it ride" and "if you do it, you do it," just adapted to 5e's milieu and language.
• Trying to nail down what the actual principles are of 5e, for both DMs and players, and actually stating these things openly and explicitly. This would almost certainly get a lot of pushback because a number of the people who were particularly vocal during the 5e public playtest are allergic to the very idea of pre-defined principles etc., but such things are the second most-important tool for averting MMI.
• Emphasizing to DMs that players really do value their characters and, if things are going well, they usually also value their position within the fictional space (as you say, the Critical Role way of doing things.) That leads to emotional investment, but it also leads to resentment if the player feels powerless, at the mercy of a fickle overlord. It is absolutely vital that the DM genuinely respect their players and what they value, even if they disagree with what the players value. This is probably the single most easily overlooked error the DM can make, one encouraged by the excessive emphasis on DM empowerment above all else.*
• Just...building better tools. Scapping the CR system and rewriting it so it is actually functional and significantly superior to eyeballing encounters. Revamping the whole magic-item-economy thing because it's bad as it stands. Useful, specific skill DC tables. Information on how to support creative player actions that aren't normally covered by other rules ("stunts" and the like.) Advice on how to reskin existing options. Better options for addressing beneficial scenarios than just "apply Advantage; if Advantage already applies...oh well, guess that extra prep was wasted!" Specific, clear discussion of the benefits and costs of things like railroading, fudging, "winging" it, etc.: DMs may have power, but using it unwisely leads to issues, and we can inform them better about how to use that power wisely.

That should cover pretty much everything that can be done without actually rewriting the system.

*Seriously. The amount of flagrant disrespect for the preferences of others I see from 5e DMs is appalling.

As far as I can tell, your view is incapable of explaining how a DM could fall into such a situation, other than by airily waving it off as "oh that's just different preferences, the game itself has nothing whatsoever to do with it." Which is, as I said, a sticking point: I am simply not going to accept any position which refuses to grant a meaningful consideration of the structure of the game itself. Play-culture and participants matter, I recognize that. But game design does too. Game design is one of the most important factors for what kind of play-culture develops, and participants (and their preferences) often change contextually dependent upon game design.

The changes you propose to 5e are mostly things at the social contract/GM principles level, however. Granted you qualify it by saying those are changes to make without "rewriting the system." In 5e (or other editions), most of my "MMI" moments have come when I was unclear as to how my character could move in the physical space they were in. There could be better advice in the DMG for this, and third parties have provided it instead, but the DM might also...not be good at following that advice. Not for any malicious reason; maybe they have difficulty describing physical space, maybe I have difficulty translating a description of physical space into a mental image, maybe they are tired, maybe we have all had a few too many drinks. The most concrete they could do is not assume a grid when writing descriptions for abilities/spells.

In terms of authority, I think different play cultures (if we use that model) want different things out of the game. I'm skeptical, though, that most players of 5e want authority over the setting aside from choosing their character's race. I would guess, within that model, that neotrad players want something more like pathfinder 2e; I see people saying of that game that the "math is really tight," and while I don't know what that means exactly it seems to reference balanced combats. There seems to be a legacy of char/system optimizers in this group, and so the game would have to be written in a certain way. The OC players maybe just want to hang out in a fictional space, in which case one might expect writing that is more similar to a game like Wanderhome (which has hardly any mechanics).

It's hard to say because there are millions of people playing 5e in some way, but from what I see I think the model of the tyrannical DM is outdated in the current play culture. I think DMs are also "neotrad" or "OC" in the sense that they want to have either reliable core and sub systems for combat and other things and/or ways to incorporate player backstories in dramatic, emotional narrative arcs.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Why haven't they internalized 'railroading is just how things are done' or 'authoratative GMing is just how things are done' or 'unbalanced classes is just how things are done'?

Well, I'd argue that at least to your second question, they have. I don't see any strong line of separation between the MMI problem and the top-down authoritarian approach; they're part of the same problem. The only difference is that the second has, at this point, some decades of pushback and few people are willing to formally defend it, which is not true of "rulings, not rules" which is what leads to MMI.

(As to the last, a lot of people consider game culture issues a whole different issue with mechanical ones, and will cheerfully bring up the latter while staying the heck away from the former, because they assume a certain objectiveness to the former).

What's different or special about MMI that they just internalize that's how it should be done but don't with the other issues?

IMO, It's one thing to claim that some people internalize that's the way it should be and so don't see the problem, but to claim the vast majority of 5e players (and thus RPG players) have internalized this about this particular issue and none others - that's quite the extraordinary claim. IMO.

I'm not claiming that. After all, we're not seeing the "vast majority" of people on fora in the first place. There can well be plenty of people out there that have big issues with any of these, but would never think to say anything about it online, because they don't talk about games online in the first place. The sample size is too small in almost any venue to say anything about the frequency of, frankly, much of anything. At best, you need to sample a large number of online communities that involve D&D players.

(And of course, account for the fact that some percentage of people who have problems with this will bail out of D&D--railroading can be a much broader problem than this because it applies equally well in games that have reduced risk of MMI because they have game systems that don't require as much non-combat player/GM interaction for the former to have some idea how things are going to be resolved and their like; though harder coded rules have their own issues, the only time they tend to push toward MMI is when they're dysfunctional, and that's less common outside of the D&D-sphere because there's far less special casing with most game systems).

 

[Ovi]

The changes you propose to 5e are mostly things at the social contract/GM principles level, however. Granted you qualify it by saying those are changes to make without "rewriting the system." In 5e (or other editions), most of my "MMI" moments have come when I was unclear as to how my character could move in the physical space they were in. There could be better advice in the DMG for this, and third parties have provided it instead, but the DM might also...not be good at following that advice. Not for any malicious reason; maybe they have difficulty describing physical space, maybe I have difficulty translating a description of physical space into a mental image, maybe they are tired, maybe we have all had a few too many drinks. The most concrete they could do is not assume a grid when writing descriptions for abilities/spells.

In terms of authority, I think different play cultures (if we use that model) want different things out of the game. I'm skeptical, though, that most players of 5e want authority over the setting aside from choosing their character's race. I would guess, within that model, that neotrad players want something more like pathfinder 2e; I see people saying of that game that the "math is really tight," and while I don't know what that means exactly it seems to reference balanced combats. There seems to be a legacy of char/system optimizers in this group, and so the game would have to be written in a certain way. The OC players maybe just want to hang out in a fictional space, in which case one might expect writing that is more similar to a game like Wanderhome (which has hardly any mechanics).

It's hard to say because there are millions of people playing 5e in some way, but from what I see I think the model of the tyrannical DM is outdated in the current play culture. I think DMs are also "neotrad" or "OC" in the sense that they want to have either reliable core and sub systems for combat and other things and/or ways to incorporate player backstories in dramatic, emotional narrative arcs.

3.x was had strong support for some forms of Neotrad play, in that it has highly codified rules that players can use with firm expectations of outcomes and simultaneously had strong encouragement to the GM to stick to the rules. This, combined with the character-build metagame that was highly unbalanced meant that players could create characters that had strong abilities to dictate to the shared fiction and the GM was expected to honor them. This is even discounting the extreme builds that relied on very permissive readings of the rules. 3.x doesn't cover all of the potential OC play, but it very much supports the power fantasy versions.

Tight math doesn't point to OC play as much, as it does to OSR or classic in that it's very much focused on fair challenges for skilled play.